I happened to find a ziploc with a layer cake of Lilac Hill from Blackbird Designs and the project I'd started as a test for the pattern I did for Stitchin' Heaven a few years ago now.
I really loved the fabric then and still do now. It really reminds me of my mom so it's no surprise!
I'd already done a block as a test of the math and had done the square in a square (SIS) units so there was mostly trimming, making some more half square triangles (HST) and SIS so I could have 9 blocks instead of the 7 I must have originally planned on.
I'm going to have to add some kind of border but since it looks like I got these blocks out of the equivalent of a charm pack I'm not too worried!
Do you think I should try for more blocks or keep it a mini? Right now it measures 14"/
I love hexies. A lot. But the whole hand piecing thing gets to be a problem with my hands, especially piecing them together. Basting isn't too bad, especially if I glue baste but yielding a needle is a chore.
I'd originally hoped to do a stocking but I only had a mini charm pack in Kathy Schmitz's Piecemakers but I couldn't make it work in hexies which is what I really wanted to do with these cuties.
As an aside, Kathy is a wonderful lady I met at Quilt Market a few years ago and I really did enjoy speaking with her.
The hand problem above was not going to stop me but the amount of fabric did until I just decided to make up a little hexie scrap mini quilt!
So this was made in only a few hours. There are 42 1" hexies. I glue basted them onto water soluble paper, then fused those to some Pellon #987F Fusible Fleece, which was layered onto a backing, before sewing them together with a zigzag stitch which just so happened to also quilt the entire piece.
And just to be contrary I did do the traditional hand binding.
The entire piece was then fairly stiff but after a trip through the washing machine you would not be able to tell that it wasn't quilted normally with no papers in it at all.
The only thing I'd try differently next time is using one of the simple stitch patterns on my sewing machine.
And there will be a next time! *Insert evil cackle*
I loved the last one so much I made a second barn raising HST quilt!
Which meant lots and lots more half square triangles, AKA HSTs.
Lots of them.
Did I mention it was a lot?
And they had to be trimmed?
No?
They did.
It took awhile.
This time I used Timeless Treasure batiks, in Lemongrass I believe. I did think about doing an X layout, it was very tempting, since the block is the same either way.
But in the end the barn won out and another one was sewn up! I really like the way the borders turned out and in general how the added white looks.
What are you working on? Do you ever do repeat patterns?
I've always loved both the barn raising and around the world layouts so decided my HSTs needed the treatment!
Here is a quilt made of from a jelly roll of Hoot Hoot from Moda that I've had in the cupboard for a while.
I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.
Less so with the size being smaller because I miss cut about 1/3 of the triangles but hey such is the way of things and now I' have a bin of 3" HSTs just waiting for their turn.
It is also one of my earliest additions to my collection of quilt publications and probably, ok most definitely, taught me more about quilting and how to breakdown designs than any other book I've ever seen.
Ms Hopkins, through her book, was vital to my quilting journey and I would put her book in my top-5-reasons-I-still-quilt list.
I adore Ms. Hopkins attitude towards quilts, quilting and math. They really helped get me into the "I-can-do-this" mindset that was helpful when I started designing my own quilts, and sometimes even just interpreting others patterns. It also has LOTS of ideas for using up HSTs in blocks etc, which is a wonderful thing for me because I really do love them.
I got this book long before EQ came into my life, and I still sometimes page through it just for fun or inspiration or the simple reminder to look at things differently to figure out the simplest way to create something beautiful.
I don't know how many of the blocks in this book I've created over the years, many will have shown up elsewhere as well, but I do know I see quilts, patterns, and things in general differently after reading, or re-reading, this great beginners quilt book. And it is great for beginners, which is what I was when I first got this book. But even if you have been quilting forever you can always pick up something new, and there are a LOT of great blocks, how to see connector blocks, and several pattern layouts that you can then figure out from the information in the book. It's a workbook more so than a pattern book.
This pretty came out of taking a block and either taking it off point or putting it on (I'm really not sure which it would be!!) and adding borders, changing colour values etc.
I really enjoy Spa by Deb Strain, and have chopped up a layer cake and some yardage, so am hoping to eventually make this as big as I can. It's going to be a medallion with this as the center.
I know it's still available in a few different places online, or if you check around maybe your local guild, library or fellow quilt lover may have a copy.
It's worth a look. Especially if you ever wonder how do you do that? For most of the basic construction and deconstruction of patterns and quilts.
The lovely Mary Ellen Hopskins died in 2013 at the age of 89 so unfortunately her collection of, I think, 10 books are all that we'll see. I do recommend checking them out.
Second post of the day! Funny how drafts don't publish themselves.
I’m not a modern quilter.
A shock I’m sure.
I like bright colours, new ways of putting things together, negative space and lots of other elements that are typically associated with modern quilting.
But of the many contrary things about me is the fact that I don’t like labels but also that while I like wild and crazy, I like wild and crazy inside a defined boundary or calm that is allowed to spill out, not as big on either being fully one thing, so I’m neither traditional or modern, I’m just a quilter.
My style is something along the lines of twisted traditional or complicated simplicity but even that really doesn’t describe anything.
And I have to wonder why this industry, and really any creative community, feels the need to define, refine, categorize and analysis and judge the always fluid concept of style. I understand it at an academic level, it is easier when the body of work is so large to narrow the focus, and I understand it psychologically, we all want to feel unique, different but not so different that others don’t share our esthetic/worldview.
I understand it, but I don’t get it. Why is everyone so closed to the notion that there is far more that we share then differentiates?
Where is the issue with allowing everyone to be an expert in their own craft, and celebrating that fact?
Why do we need more to separate us? Is our sense of self so fragile and weak that anything that challenges what works for us as being “THE WAY IT IS DONE”, elicits a defensive aggression to tear what works for others apart?
And why do we want to see that which binds us fray and separate? We’re quilters. We cut up fabric and sew it back together again. We make things for the joy of it, to give, to keep warm, to connect. What the hell does it matter what style we use?
I hate it but the Quilt Police are real, they are out there waiting to judge. We give them power every time we judge another’s work as “other”, and the jail is where our creative impulses go after learning to fear their judgement, and our cells are the “movement” or “style” which we attach ourselves to when we start to label ourselves, because those labels exclude far more then they describe and subconsciously we shrink our potential because we want to belong.
Find your voice for the sole reason that it is YOURS. And that is awesome. You have something amazing and I desperately hope that you will find the courage to share it with yourself if no one else and don’t allow any intimidation to stop you from seeing your own greatness in at least trying.
Self reflection is often a painful and unpleasant thing, even for those of us who are more then slightly acquainted with the insanity that is self awareness, and conscientious mindfulness. But without agency, or "hands" it's all just a bunch of stuff in your head.
Why am I saying something about self reflection & agency on my nearly abandoned quilt blog?
Because it is through self reflection of the most unpleasant but productive kind I have come to all kinds of points on more than a few areas that had finally managed to get me so wrapped up I was unable to create or nurture ANY aspect of my life in a way that satisfied anything, leaving me feeling without hands or voice.
Even when things did go well, which to be honest started to become more of in spite of my efforts rather than because of them, I got less and less out of it.
I don't just mean less joy, I mean less anything.
Only my curiosity, a drive to understand so I can protect myself, occasionally popped up to keep me involved, and the very deep fear/painful memories of being abandoned/left out, kept me moving forward in parts of my life someone reading this blog may be familiar with.
I, who anyone who has known me for long will tell you is passionate and curious, couldn't muster any enthusiasm for what I had/was working for, and everything I did manage to accomplish become another stress, another load to carry for reasons I did not understand.
I will not label the above because it is incredibly complicated and interconnected with a whole lot of other things that really I feel no need to share broadly, but whatever you're comfortable labeling it with your understanding of life and me is fine with me, the point is the same regardless of the "cause".
No matter how many times I tried to get back to "me", or how hard I was on myself for not getting that abstract task done, things kept getting worse until I hit a point I've been to before.
This is a point we all hit occasionally- lucky hit it in a way and at a time when there is some kind of net to help with the fall and climb back up, unlucky hits the bottom head first on their own at a time when no one is helping them. I'm not lucky but neither am I fully unlucky.
I have hit bottom, violently, many times before, betrayed by every person who ever could/should have saved me, including me, in ways that most would/could never believe.
I am a survivor in so many connotations of the word, a survivor of more than any one person should have to ever expect or accept.
I have been beaten, silenced, violated, betrayed, intimidated, brutalized and convinced I am worth less then any who will choose not to give me what they in return demand, but the point I'm making is not about what I survived or what destroyed me, but that I survived.
The point is that, this time it was just a bit more complete in the destruction but like every other time chaos & hurt has hit I arrived at the point past triage. For me this is the time to make a choice.
Choose to allow what was destroyed to die as total a death as possible for it, and if I choose this option what parts of me & mine will be destroyed with it and is it worth it?, or to build upon the ashes of what had come before and use what survived with me to build stronger.
What to build is a question that comes after making the above decisions and I'm guessing you can figure out which I choose over and over and over again. I mean I'm writing this so it's somewhat self-evident.
This really is the only thing I feel I do know, that I can say and it be as true later as it is now- I survived, I will survive again, I will create, and I will no longer allow others to push me where I know I am not able to thrive, no matter how good their intentions.
I cannot fix all that broke before or still waits to be broken around the corner, but to those who have been hurt, disappointed or angered by me, I'm so sorry.
I can tell you my intentions but you probably know them enough or you wouldn't have cared enough to feel strongly by my mess ups, or you don't know me enough to care what my intentions were and your anger/hurt is less caused by me & more triggered by my actions.
Regardless, I fully & unequivocally apologize to you. Your feelings are fully valid regardless of how or why I or my actions became a part of them and I regret my own chaos injured you in anyway.
The question of what's next?
Well, first, I'm going to try to get myself balanced with my husband, daughter & those I call family, those of my heart who will fight as hard for me as I will for them.
Then I will figure out what to do with those outside of that, not because outside means less, but without a stable foundation to rest on, anything I create now will be temporary/weak, and I believe in building to last and that's what I'm going to do.
As I go, those and that which is toxic to me and mine will be removed from any sphere that allows their poison into my foundation, it is that simple for it is that necessary.
Instead of CaraQuilts, I'm going to take a detour as Creating Cara, let's see where and who that gets us.
One thing that I have rediscovered already is my voice, which has been silenced for far too long by chains placed on it by others but held there by me afterwards. And once you start breaking chains, each one becomes easier- this much I know, it's not easy, but easier each time, until one day it is automatic to break chains others place on us.
So thank you to those who have said this to me in countless ways small ways over my life, most will never know the great gift they gave to me, and to any who need to hear it, I say it to you.
I believe you can survive, I believe in you, that you have what it takes keep going & grow.
Choose to survive & you will find a way, this I know, but be ready with your own hands to reach out, be it to give or receive, for your hands are only yours, and I believe they can be strong enough for whatever you choose to do with them.
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